The present invention is directed to a system and method for dynamic feedback projection from a hand-held pointing device.
Remote control communications systems are often employed to allow control of certain electronic targets from a distance. Such targets may include electronically controlled appliances. Exemplary forms of such appliances include any type of home-based appliance, as well as appliances that are found outside the home such as, for example, automotive controls, industrial controls, or security locks.
Although conventional remote control systems provide convenience over non-remote operation, these systems do have some limitations. One such limitation is that multiple handheld remote control units may be required to control multiple targets (or appliances). Although xe2x80x9cuniversalxe2x80x9d remote control units are available which can control multiple appliances, such units typically work for a limited number of appliances, and the remote control unit must be programmed with information about each appliance.
With universal remote controls, the particular appliance to be controlled is selected, typically by pushing a button or key dedicated to that appliance. This may result in a handheld unit having a large number of buttons, which may make the unit more complex or cumbersome to operate so that mistakes are more likely.
Another limitation of conventional remote control communications systems is that remote control is routinely available for only a relatively small variety of appliances. Consumer electronic appliances, for example, are routinely provided with remote control units, but remote control may not be readily available for other types of appliances, such as, e.g., kitchen appliances, lighting, and climate control. Furthermore, conventional remote control communications systems generally rely on optical transmission, so that a clear line of sight between the remote control unit and the appliance is required.
It may be desirable, however, to control appliances situated such that a clear line of sight does not exist. For example, control of a stereo or a thermostat from another room may be convenient without having to optically target the appliance to be controlled.
One approach to providing such non-line-of-sight control is to use radio-frequency (RF) transmission in addition to or instead of optical transmission. The RF range is quite broad, extending from approximately 10 kHz (104 Hz) to about 300 GHz (3xc3x971011 Hz), and is used for various types of communications. For example, wireless voice and data communications typically use frequencies in a range from about 800 MHz to a few GHz. The lower frequencies associated with RF communications, as compared to communication at infrared and visible optical frequencies (from about 1013 to 1015 Hz), allow transmission over larger distances, and diffraction around or transmission through certain obstacles.
Remote control communications systems have been developed which employ RF transmission. Some systems may use solely RF transmission, while others, such as that described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,227,780 to Tigwell, allow RF transmission from a remote control unit to a transponder located in the vicinity of the appliance to be controlled. The transponder then transmits an infrared control signal to the appropriate appliance. Other systems, such as that described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,904,993 to Sato, allow either RF or optical transmission to be chosen, based on the nature of the path between the remote control unit and the appliance to be controlled, and some, such as that described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,659,883 to Walker et al., transmit RF and optical signals simultaneously, allowing the appliance receiver to extract the highest-quality signal.
A disadvantage of using RF transmission is that the ensuing increased transmission range may inadvertently cause communication with multiple appliances simultaneously, when communication with only one appliance may be desired. For this reason, currently available remote control communications systems which use RF transmission must typically be configured so that only a specific receiving appliance will respond to a signal from a remote control unit. Identification of the specific receiving appliance is generally accomplished by transmission of an identifying code from the remote control unit to the receiver associated with the appliance, as described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,500,691 to Martin et al. The requirement for such an identifying code unfortunately may limit the number of appliances which can be conveniently controlled by a single remote control unit. For example, if codes corresponding to various appliances are stored in the remote control unit, and the particular appliance to be controlled is chosen by pressing a corresponding button on the control unit, space constraints on the remote control unit may allow for only a limited number of appliances to be addressed.
It would, therefore, be advantageous to have a remote control communications system and method in which a single handheld remote control unit may be used to communicate with a wide variety of appliances. It would further be advantageous to have an apparatus and method for controlling a plurality of appliances and to receive feedback from the appliances to thereby determine various operating modes of the appliances.
The present invention provides a system and method for providing dynamic feedback projection from a hand held pointing device. The system includes a hand held pointing device that is capable of two way communication with appliance interfaces associated with appliances that are controllable by the hand held pointing device. The hand held pointer is capable of transmitting signals to the appliance interfaces and receiving response signals from the appliance interfaces. The signals sent to the appliance interfaces and received from the appliance interfaces may be optical signals, radio frequency (RF) signals, infrared signals, and the like.
Additionally, the hand held pointing device includes a visible light projection apparatus for projecting light onto a remote surface. The projected light is displaced on the remote surface by a light projection modification apparatus such that the projected light creates images corresponding to the response signals from the appliance interfaces.
The light projection modification apparatus may include a reflective surface and devices for altering the angle of the reflective surface so that the position of the projected light on a remote surface is altered. In one embodiment, the reflective surface may be a mirror and the devices for altering the angle of the mirror may be struts associated with an X axis speaker and a Y axis speaker. The speakers convert electrical signals into mechanical perturbations which cause the struts to displace, thereby displacing the mirror.
The angle of the reflective surface is modified based on control signals from a microprocessor in the hand held pointing device. The microprocessor may make use of information stored in a memory for determining the shapes which the projected light is to make on the remote surface. The shapes may be predetermined or may be generated using graphical primitives stored in the memory.
A user may cycle through the images that are projected onto the remote surface by operating an actuator on the hand held pointing device. Once the user finds an image corresponding to a desired function that is to be performed by the appliance, the user may select the function by operating another actuator on the hand held pointing device. In response, the image projected onto the remote surface may be changed to indicate the performance of the desired function. In this way, the appliance is able to provide visual feedback to the user so that the user may readily determine the available functions associated with an appliance and also determine an appliance""s current state with regard to these functions.